


Cub Creek Adventure Camp

by sundropflower



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Trans Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-14 20:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19280404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundropflower/pseuds/sundropflower
Summary: Ventus has never been away from Aqua and Terra, not since he came under their care. Now that he's sixteen, they agree that maybe it's time for Ven to find some new friends. Two weeks at a sleep-away camp in the middle of the woods is both frightening and fantastic, but some of the kids he'll be spending his time with are not what Ven expected. He just has to keep from slipping into old habits for fourteen days. Cub Creek sounds like it could be fun; there's a zip-line, and a ceramics studio, and an archery field... They teach campers how to survive in the woods and take care of the earth. It seems like it could be really educational! Ven just has to get through two weeks without Aqua and Terra. Just fourteen days.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my little self-indulgent summer camp AU! I'll add content tags and relationships and things when they're relevant and put notes like this at the start when something might come up in a chapter, since I've never posted on AO3 before so I'm not really sure how it all works.
> 
> I have half of this planned out, but not a lot, so if there's something or someone you'd want to see show up, leave a comment and it very well could happen. Note that Repliku shows up here as Riku's younger brother, and his name is Todd, because I was in a KH discord group that decided his name was Todd, and I can't write him any other way now.
> 
> Also, Sora is a trans girl. That's just how it be. Okay. Have fun!

Ven already had bug bites, and itches, and he couldn't tell if he hated it here, or loved it. 

Aqua promised that sleep-away camps like this were perfectly safe. Terra made up some stories to scare him, but Aqua shoved at Terra’s chest until he broke into laughs and admitted it was all for a rise: “You should have seen the look on your face, Ven! Priceless!” Right before they packed up the car to drive into the woods, Terra had said that camp taught a man how to be a man, how to survive, how to make friends. Aqua liked the sound of Ven making friends.

Ven didn't know if he liked the sound of it, though. Aqua and Terra were friends enough, right? How was he supposed to spend two whole weeks away from them? In the wilderness? By himself? With the bugs?

Terra hauled Ven’s things out of the back of the car. Aqua had her checklist in her hands, slightly shaking as she tried to smooth out the fold lines of the paper. “Sleeping bag?”

“Check,” Terra assured her, lifting the coiled plastic thrown over his shoulder. 

“Band-aids?”

“You packed them in the first-aid kit.”

“Did I remember bug spray? Anti-itch creams?”

Terra laughed. “Three different brands.”

Ven rubbed at his arm as he watched the two go back and forth, reading out the inventory of his items. That was his entire life in their hands; clothes, books, toiletries. Aqua had packed him a ten-pack of embroidery floss, saying he might need the colors for friendship bracelets in the arts and crafts classes.

He tried to look less nervous. His hands went to his pockets, and his fingers curled around the smooth metal keychain attached to the ring in his front pocket. There was a whistle, and his house key, and a plastic tag that Aqua had written all of his important information on. There was also the survival knife, folded up and clipped to the key ring, given to him two days ago by Terra.

“Just in case. Camp is camp, and there are counselors and stuff, but life happens, and things get dangerous,” he had warned, sitting on the edge of Ven’s bed. “My… My father gave me this when I went away to school.”

“I can’t take this,” Ven tried. It wasn’t just the sentimental value; Eraqus had taken Ven in, too; he knew how much a parting gift from Eraqus meant to Terra. It was that this was a _knife,_ and Ven was going to a _summer camp,_ and he was sixteen. He had lifted his legs, pulling his knees closer to his chest, and hugged the open book in his hands closer to his lungs. “Terra, I… I appreciate it, but I can’t-?”

Terra clipped the knife to Ven’s key ring and set it back against the younger’s bedside table. He shook his head, and then he replied, “You might need to break a rope, or fend off a critter, or mark your trail in the trees. It's pretty easy to get lost, and you don't know what's going to be in the woods out there."

"Are... Are you expecting me to get mauled by a bear, or something?" Ven had laughed.

Terra had laughed, too, and then, with a big smile, he suggested, "Or, maybe you’ll just use it to peel oranges and cut embroidery floss when you’re making all those friendship bracelets Aqua’s been going on about. Who knows? Doesn't have to be a big deal, but a pocket knife can be really useful. Take it with you. Please?”

He had agreed. And now, Ven ran his thumb over the folded knife again, losing focus. He hoped he wouldn’t need it at all, but he knew he was going to be retreating to it often. Terra had no idea what he’d given to Ventus.

Maybe, if he’d opened his eyes a little wider, Terra would have thought better of the decision. 

Ven pulled his hands from his pockets and straightened up, trying to force himself to zero back in on Aqua and Terra’s voices. 

“Right, Ven?” Terra laughed, meeting his gaze.

Ven made himself smile. “Yeah,” he laughed back, with no idea of what he was agreeing to, “Totally.”

“Alright, so do you need us to walk you to check-in, Ven, or-?” Aqua started, and Ven hurried to throw his hands in the air and wave away her suggestions. She laughed, but he could see the hurt in her eyes. “Okay, okay,” she agreed, a hand at her mouth. “We won’t embarrass you any further.”

“You’re not…embarrassing,” he tried. “I just… None of the other kids are getting walked up by their parents.”

Terra laughed, swinging Ven’s things back over his shoulder to carry them to Ven’s cabin. “We aren’t your parents! C’mon, Ven, let us help you walk your stuff in, at least. We just want to help, and see you off, and say goodbye, and all that. C'mon.”

He took a long breath. It would make Aqua happy, and he wouldn’t have to struggle to carry around all of the things they’d made him pack… But, at the same time, Ven didn’t want to waltz into camp on the first day, trailed by his doting guardians, and be seen as the sixteen year old who still needed a babysitter. None of the other kids-!

The slam of a car door made Ventus wince. He, along with Aqua and Terra, looked over their shoulders to the source of the noise: a gray Subaru, and two girls hoisting a similar set-up. The taller of the two huffed her black bangs out of her brown eyes as she carried a pillow and a rolled up sleeping bag away from the car. The shorter pulled the straps of her backpack up onto her shoulders and juggled with a beat-up duffel bag, checking over a notepad in her hands. “I said I was sorry,” she shouted to the the taller, reaching up to pull her hair as if she was going to tie it back. Then, groaning loudly with her frustration, she let it fall back to just barely graze her shoulders. “Are you really going to do this? Like, what. A three hour drive wasn’t enough? Now you’re going to follow me into camp?”

“It’s too late to turn around, but maybe it isn’t too late to sign on as an extra chaperone.”

Aqua nudged Ven with her elbow. She leaned down, and teased, voice quiet, “Ooh. Maybe I ought to think about that.”

Ven winced again. This time, more pronounced. He hoped she couldn't pick up the terror in his voice when he grumbled back, “Please, don’t.”

“Come on, Skuld! How many times do I have to say that I’m sorry before you listen to me? Can I just go by myself, please? You’re-!”

The taller girl, Skuld, stopped dead in her tracks under the camp’s wide carved entrance sign. “I’m what, Seren? Embarrassing you? Humiliating you? Good! Maybe you’ll learn something. Does the phrase ‘off-limits’ mean _nothing_ to you?”

“Skuld!”

Terra let out a low whistle as the trio watched them storm off, still arguing. “Yikes. Someone’s not going to have a fun time at camp.”

Ven felt the same. Still, he put on a brave face, laughed it off, and joked back, “Yeah, rough two weeks ahead, huh?”

“But, hey,” Aqua tried, refolding her prep list, “now you’re not the only person being walked in, right?” 

Ven’s stomach fell. “Yeah,” he said, smile faltering. Didn't she see how this just proved Ven's point about being embarrassed? He was being tailed by over-protective siblings, and that Seren kid was making a show of fighting with Skuld. The two of them could be camp laughingstocks together; the teenage babies who couldn't be trusted to walk up to a check-in table by themselves. Ven straightened his spine, shook off his nerves, and announced, “I guess that’s true. Can we… Can we just go, now?”

The check-in took longer than Ven would have liked. There were three tables, each staffed by a too-tired counselor pouring over highlighted pages and checking off names. When it was finally Ven’s turn, and they found his name among the list, he turned to find himself staring into the big blue eyes of- “Sora!”

“Excuse me?” Ven asked, jumping back.

The girl flashed a big, bright smile. She had colorful bands on her braces, red and blue and yellow, and she stepped back to give herself the space to hold a hand out for Ven to shake. “Sora!” she said again. “I’m Sora. I’m a cabin leader! You’re going to be in our group!”

“Group?”

Sora looked over her shoulder, reaching up to fuss with the ends of her brown hair, clipped up with colorful barrettes. She searched the crowd of campers for someone she couldn’t find, and then explained, “My brother, Roxas. We’ve been coming here every summer for years, so we’re cabin leaders now. Kind of like junior counselors! Anyway, they pair a boys’ cabin and a girls’ cabin for group activities, and Roxas and I have paired cabins. List says you’re in Rox’s cabin!”

Ven tried to follow Sora’s gaze, but didn’t know who he would be looking for. “Uh, so then why isn’t Roxas the one meeting me? If I’m, you know… In his cabin, or whatever?”

Sora laughed. “He’s showing another boy to the cabin right now! C’mon, I’ll show you the way over. You can meet all your new cabin buddies there! And your…parents? Can carry your things and drop them off at your bunk!”

Aqua and Terra exchanged glances before stifling their laughs. Ven didn’t have it in him to argue. He just nodded, and followed behind Sora as she showed him the way toward the cabins. Sora chirped away about all of the things this camp had to offer, and her favorite activities. She was saying something about how she and Roxas used to share cabins, before she realized she was a girl, and how accepting the camp had been about letting her swap cabins to stay with the girls, but Ven was too busy looking around at all of the kids milling around. 

Cabins nestled into the tree lines, and Ven noticed rope tire swings and…was that a zip-line in the distance? The grass fields stretched out toward the cafeteria building, and there was a pool a few yards away from that. Ven could hear kids already splashing away, laughing, and there were younger campers playing tag in the grass. 

Sora waved to a girl with short red hair, who waved back excitedly before catching a frisbee. Ven followed the trajectory, and saw another girl dusting her hands on her orange tank top, her brown hair braided back into two long plaits. “Hey, Sora!”

“Hiya, Kairi! Hey, Olette!” Sora called back.

“Who’s the new kid?” the red-haired girl called back, waving the frisbee at Ven.

Sora clapped her hands down on Ven’s shoulders and shook him a little. “Oh, this is Ventus! He’s in Rox’s cabin, like Hayner!”

“Oh, yeah? First year at camp, Ventus?” called the brunette. 

Ven nodded. Before he could speak for himself, Aqua answered, “Yep! And he’s so excited to be here. Right, Ven?”

He shrunk, feeling at the checkerboard wristband at his left arm. Ven’s fingers played in the elastic, and he muttered, “I can speak for myself, Aqua.” Then, louder, he introduced, "It's, uh, nice to meet you two. Call me Ven?"

"Sure!"

“It’s, wait. It's...it’s this one over here,” Sora said, waving again to Kairi and Olette. The girls gave back small waves, tossing quiet goodbyes, before they resumed their frisbee game. “I think you’ll like it. Camp’s been really fun. I met all my best friends here! Kairi’s from Radiant Garden, and Riku and I really got to be close because of buddy games here. Riku’s my best friend in the whole world. Kairi, too, now. And Roxas really loves all his camp buddies, too! There’s this one counselor, Lea, who Roxas really looks up to. And he met this girl last year, Xion, and they’ve been writing letters back and forth all year! He’s really glad to be back at camp, I think. I know I am!”

Ven laughed, but he was still tugging on his wristband. “You always talk this much?” 

Sora skipped up the three steps to the cabin, laughing the entire way. She made an exaggerated bow, and then gestured through the open cabin doors. Behind her, there was a boy with her exact same build; both were skinny, with dark brown brows and sun freckles across their dark tanned skin. Sora’s hair stuck up in every direction, helped into its tiara-like shape with her colored clips, where this boy had his styled precisely to the right, bleached blonde at the ends but still dark at his roots. They had the same bright blue eyes, and the same laugh. 

This must have been Roxas. “Only when she’s excited about something. Which is…all the time, actually. You’re…don’t tell me. Uh… Vincent?”

“Ventus,” he corrected, following Terra up the steps. “But, you can call me Ven.”

“Right, right. Ven. Well, welcome to the cabin, Ven. You know Sora, I guess, so that means you probably ran into Kairi and Riku.”

“Kairi and Olette,” Sora corrected, showing Terra which bunk was going to be Ven’s. As Terra tossed the sleeping bag and Ven’s other things onto the mattress, Sora continued, “I haven’t seen Riku around yet. Is he still coming this year? He was supposed to be coming with Todd, right?”

Roxas shrugged, hopping up to sit on one of the dressers in the cabin. “He’d said so, sure. But, hey, you know how things can change. Wasn’t Mickey saying something about internships for college, or something?”

Sora frowned, but perked back up pretty quick. “Yeah, well. He’ll show.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So! Ven, you know Sora, and I’m Roxas. Over there’s Pence, he’s been comin’ every year the last three years,” Roxas introduced, pointing over to a larger boy, tapping away at a laptop balanced on his legs. Pence raised a hand to wave, but was still pretty occupied with his laptop. “Hayner’s there, with the bad attitude.”

The boy Roxas had pointed out next, Hayner, leaned down from his perch on the top bunk to smack Roxas with one of his shoes. “Hey!” he laughed, fists dug into his hips. “Who’re you callin’ a ‘bad attitude’? You’re the bad influence around here.”

“Cabin leader,” Roxas reminded him, with a grin, digging his thumb into his chest.

“So, which bunk is for your chaperone, then?” Aqua asked, counting the beds out. 

The boys all quieted down. Sora was the only person brave enough to answer, and she did so with a laugh. Her finger against her upper lip, she explained, “The counselors have their own cabins, by the rec rooms. Cabin leaders are kind of like, the supervisors for the cabins themselves. Counselors come around for things like curfew and lights-out and stuff, but after that, its the cabin leaders who are in charge.”

Aqua’s face paled. “Oh. So, Ventus, you’ll be okay with that?”

Ven gave her a look that only made her paler. “Yeah, Aqua. It’s fine. You’re the only one worried. Besides, isn’t it time you, you know…left?”

“Ventus.”

He turned his look instead to Terra, who seemed to get it a little better. Terra put a hand at Aqua’s shoulder, and reminded her, “You thought camp would be fun. And it will be! But we have to leave Ven here to have fun. We can’t just hang around here all day and embarrass him, no matter how fun that would be for us.”

“Terra!”

“C’mon. We helped him drop his things off. We ought to get going. Right, Ven?” Terra shot the blonde a knowing wink, a small nod, and then helped to guide Aqua back to the cabin’s door. 

She opened her mouth to protest, but remembered all the good she was sure this would do. With a deep breath, Aqua picked up her steps to get a few paces ahead of Terra, and shot back to Ven, “We’ll be back in two weeks! And I want to hear all about the fun you had, okay?”

“Yeah, alright,” Ven called back, face red. “I’ll make you some bracelets, or something.”

Aqua gave him a bright grin, her eyes crinkling in the corners. “I’d really like that, Ven. Alright, Terra. We should head out, right?”

“Bye, Ven!” Terra agreed, heading out the door.

Everyone waited until the two were long out of earshot before they made their jokes. “So, uh… Those your parents?” Hayner asked, obviously holding back laughter. “They, um… They really seem…attached.”

“More like my siblings,” Ven said, climbing up the ladder of his bunk to start to unpack. He rolled out his sleeping bag across the bed, fixing it on the mattress. “They mean well, but, like… I’m sixteen, you know? I’m allowed to have other friends outside my family. Right?”

“It should be encouraged, actually,” Roxas said, tossing Hayner’s lost shoe at Sora, who swatted it out of the air. “Family can be pretty annoying.”

“Tripping on your dumb skateboard in the middle of the night is annoying!” She shot back, smiling. “And how you keep overwriting my save files on Animal Crossing! I was so close to getting the duck villager!”

“Wait, Rox, the duck villager? That-? That’s heinous!” Pence gasped, his hand to his chest in a faux-shock. Then, laughing, he said, “I can help you out with that, Sora. You bring anything to game on? I can try to trade you some stuff, if you wanted.”

She lit up. “That’d be super sweet, Pence! Thanks!”

“Sure.”

“Hey, isn’t it time you took stock of your kids?” Roxas asked of her, nodding to the door.

Sora’s mouth fell open. “Oh, man! I totally forgot! Okay, catch up at dinner, yeah?” She collected herself and skipped toward the door.

Hayner leaned forward, nearly falling off the top bunk, and shouted after her, “Hey! Toss me back my shoe!” Then, when it was clear Sora was long gone, he flopped back against the mattress. “This everyone, yeah? Us, and now the new kid?”

“Yeah,” Roxas said, pulling a list from his pocket. “You, Pence, me, and Ven. I thought there might be one or two more kids in here, but we’re all set." 

Ven glanced about the room; the ceiling fan spun lazy circles, and the bug nets over the windows made them nearly too dark to see through. There were three sets of bunk beds shoved into the corners of the room, with the fourth walled off as the bathroom. Roxas and Hayner had taken a set, and Ven had started to unpack on the bed atop Pence's chosen bunk, but that still left one completely empty set. Right now, that bed served as a storage space for the other boys' things, apparently. 

Roxas traced a finger along something written on his list, nodding as he read. "Sora’s got a smaller cabin, too. I think Kairi ended up a cabin leader this year? So, she’s got her own charges to take care of.”

“Kairi’s a cabin leader? Then who’s with Sora?”

Roxas threw his hands in the air, palms up, and scoffed loudly. “What, like I’m supposed to have all that memorized? I have a paper with my cabin and today’s schedule, you guys, and that’s _all._ You should have asked her while she was here!”

While everyone else was distracted arguing about who was in what cabins, and which counselor was going to be in charge of their cabin, Ven pulled a small plush toy of a gray striped cat from his bag, stuffing it quickly into his sleeping bag to hide it from the others. This was going to be a long two weeks, but he had his Chirithy, and Terra’s gift, and it was some time to figure out what he wanted. “So, anyway, uh… What’s for dinner, anyway?” he asked, straightening the sleeping bag to look less suspicious.

“I think tonight we’re doing a barbecue?” Pence replied, reaching up to knock a fist against the bottom of Ven’s bunk. “They did s’mores the first night last year, are we doing that again, Roxas?”

He read over his paper. “Uh, looks like, yeah,” he answered. “We’re watching something on the projector out in the field, doing barbecue and s’mores. Camp fire treats, all that shit.”

“Oh, wow. He’s swearing and _I’m_ the one with the bad attitude?” Hayner laughed, reaching down to ruffle at Roxas’s hair. He swatted his hands away, but smiled all the same. “Does that say what we’re watching?”

“No, and we all know you’re not going to be paying much attention, anyway,” Roxas shot back. “Ven, we’ll catch you up to speed. Hayner’s got a bit of a reputation.”

“For what, terrible fashion sense?” Ven shot.

Hayner’s grin faltered, but Pence and Roxas lit up. As he hopped down from the dresser and reclaimed Hayner’s tossed shoe, Roxas laughed, “I like this kid. You know, Ventus, I think you’re gonna fit in _just_ fine around here.”


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camp goes to dinner, where Sora and Kairi hatch a scheme. Ven tries to keep straight all of the new faces he’s meeting.

The sunsets took so long here. The sky was blush, and pink, and yellow, and it stayed that way for ages. Roxas had scoffed at it, saying real sunsets were more red, but Ven thought it was beautiful. He hadn’t ever really watched the sun setting before. Ven usually holed himself up in his room during the day, and by the time he brought his head out of his books to remember dinner, the stars were out. Hayner, always contrary, had insisted that the sunsets at Cub Creek were too short, and that by the time the day was over, it was too dark to find his way back to the cabins, most nights.

“Is that why you kept getting caught out past curfew with Olette last year?” Pence teased as the group made their way to the cafeteria building. “Because it was ‘too dark to see your way back’?”

Hayner sunk his elbow into Pence’s side. “We said we weren’t talking about that again.”

“What? If Ven’s going to be staying in the cabin, he ought to know what he’s getting into!” Roxas laughed. He placed both hands at Hayner’s shoulders before he jumped up, forcing Hayner to catch his legs and carry Roxas on his back. “You’re going to vanish in the middle of the night to go make out with some girl, and Ven here would have had no choice but to assume you’d been eaten alive, by mountain lions or bears or something.”

“Bears, absolutely,” Ven agreed, hand in his pocket. His thumb traced the edge of Terra’s knife, and he remembered his jokes from the night he’d been given it. “My mind would have gone to bears.”

Roxas pointed a finger at Ven, causing Hayner to nearly topple as he tried to balance the other boy on his back. “Exactly. We’re just looking out for your safety, man. It’s our civic duty as leaders to catch this poor sap up to speed, so he doesn't call Isa in the middle of the night, and get you absolutely busted.”

“Isa is…who, again? Remind me?” Ven asked.

Pence gestured to a man standing outside of the cafeteria building. His long hair was dyed blue, a similar shade to Aqua’s, and he had it tied back in a tight ponytail. Ven winced, realizing it wasn’t a shadow from his sunglasses across his nose, but a deep scar in the shape of an X. He was handing out plates to campers as they headed around the building for the grills and fire pits. “That’s Isa. He’s our counselor, so he’s going to be the one checking in on us for curfew and stuff.”

“Why couldn’t we get Lea this year?” Hayner frowned.

Roxas ducked his head into Hayner’s shoulder and let out a long groan. “I really hoped, you guys! I really did! But nope, we’ve gotta get saddled with the camp buzzkill!”

“Is he that bad?” Ven asked, watching as Isa handed out plates, calling after a few younger campers who took off running for the grills. “I mean, he seems…Fine.”

Pence shrugged. “Well, he’s just kind of a stickler about all of the rules. Lea’s way more chill.”

“Lea let us get away with everything!” Roxas whined. “This summer could have been awesome, but now it can only be… I don’t know. Cool, or whatever.”

“At least Isa still brings over ice cream,” Hayner tried, bending his knees to drop Roxas back to the ground. “So. Usual spot?”

The boys took the lead, letting Ven trail along in their footsteps. They collected their plates and followed the streams of campers to the grills set up in the field. There were hot dogs, and burgers, and… ribs? And then there were skewers of vegetables, and racks of corn, and potatoes wrapped in foil baking away. It all smelled really good, actually, and Ven felt a little better about being away from Aqua and Terra. At least he had his cabin mates, who all seemed pretty nice. He felt even better when the ‘usual spot’ turned out to be a log under two denser trees, off to the side of the field, where Sora, Kairi, Olette, and a few others were waiting with plates full of food. 

He noted Sora, her feet stretched out in two vastly different directions, sitting in the grass with two plates worth of food in front of her. Olette had brought a blanket, and was sitting on that, her legs crossed and her plate balanced on one of her thighs. Kairi had taken some of Sora’s hair clips and pinned back her bangs from her face, and was sitting on the log next to a blonde girl who looked…kind of a lot like her. They both had the same soft curve to their faces, and the same blue eyes. Ven wondered if they were sisters, except for the fact that Kairi’s hair was a dark red, and this girl’s was a ghostly white-blonde. Kairi’s skin was deep, and this girl’s was sickly pale. 

Actually, now that Ven looked at her, he wondered if she was feeling alright enough to be out here, at a summer camp in the wilderness. Was she, like…sick, or something?

“Hey, Pence!” She called, setting down her fork, a sprig of grilled asparagus still impaled on the tines, to reach up and give him half a hug. “Thanks again for those links. Super helpful.”

Pence smiled wide, settling down on a spot of the log next to her. As he started spreading butter onto his corn, Pence asked, “Did everything download okay?”

She nodded, clasping her hands together, her plate balanced in her lap. “Yes! And it’s been so much easier to work with than Manga Studio was. I even convinced mom to agree about maybe getting me a tablet for my birthday after I showed her what I was able to draw up, so thank you!”

“Anytime, Naminé.” Then, remembering himself, Pence looked over to Ven, and explained through a mouthful of corn, “Naminé is a great artist.”

She went pink across her cheeks. “I’m still practicing.”

“You’re really good!” Pence insisted. He nudged Sora, who kicked her feet out against the grass. “Tell them!”

Sora threw her head back, nearly toppling backwards in the process. “ _So_ good,” she agreed.

“Are we all flirting with Naminé again?” Hayner teased, sitting down on Olette’s blanket and starting in on a hot dog. 

Olette gave him a pretty hard shove, but it didn’t dissuade him from his chosen seat. “Sorry, Hayner,” she smirked, crossing her arms across her chest. “We know you’re not into blondes. We’ll shut up about how impressive Naminé is.”

Naminé’s entire face went red at that. She pulled her hair all over one shoulder, coiling a tight curl around her finger, and then made herself busy dressing her baked potato. 

The broad side of the cafeteria building lit up as the camp’s projector sparked to life. It took a moment to set up properly, but soon the slatted walls were warning the campers about video piracy laws, and then it was advertising what was “coming soon” to DVD and video…six years prior. Everyone turned in their various makeshift seats to better watch the movie, but Ventus was more interested in the sky behind the cafeteria. 

The furthest points were still blue, untouched by the color of the setting sun, but the horizon was bright gold. Somehow, he never found the spot of sky where the two met and made green. The clouds blushed pink, and then they shifted into purple, and then they went gray as the sky finally darkened the same ways. Blue to purple, into black. Yellow into red, before turning violet. 

Stars began to creep out as the movie went on, and while Ven stared at the wall that became their movie screen, he wasn’t really _watching_. He waited for the sky to turn over, nearly forgetting the dull roar of six conversations floating around him all at once.

He’d missed the arrival of Roxas’s pen pal, Xion. Ven doubled when he finally noticed her; dark skin, shy smile, and a bob of black hair. He almost thought she was the girl he’d seen when he’d checked in before he remembered that Seren’s hair had been longer. And, now that he was _trying_  to remember, Seren hadn’t seemed so…feminine.

Xion was kicking her boots against Sora’s sneakers, and Ven found himself distracted by the way the plastic seashell charms on Xion’s laces clinked together from the movement. He’d completely zoned out, and so he jumped when Xion asked, “Hey, are you, like…okay?”

“What?”

“I asked you a question.”

“Yeah, I…I’m fine.”

She turned her head, brows furrowing. “No, before that.”

Ven ducked his head. “Oh. Sorry, uh… What’d you say?”

Xion straightened her spine and cleared her throat. She laced her fingers together and made a show of stretching her arms. “I made some really excellent jokes about how you must be a real lady-killer at your school, which was funny only because you were completely ignoring everything us girls were saying to you. And then, you _ignoring_ me proved my whole point, and made everyone laugh, which you still didn’t notice! It was amazing, really, until Sora managed to take a corn-on-the-cob off your plate without you realizing it.”

Ven looked down. She was right; half of the food he’d grabbed for himself was gone, but Ven hadn’t been the one to eat it. It finally struck him how hungry he actually was, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to eat in front of this many people. Dinners had been so quiet, and proper, and stiff at home. It had gotten a little more relaxed after Eraqus passed, but then, Ven had gotten used to forgetting to come down for dinner at all. Looking around to the campers staring back at him expectantly, Ventus realized he...hadn’t spent this much time around other people in weeks. He wasn’t sure how to do it.  “I’m sorry, it’s…been a long day?”

Xion waved her hand, huffing a dramatic breath out of her lungs as she rolled her eyes at him. “Please, as if. You’re fine. So, are you, or aren’t you?”

“Fine?”

“A real lady-killer,” she teased, lifting her brows at him.

Ven felt his face go hot. “No?” he protested, drawing back. “No, I… I’m homeschooled?”

Xion fell into a pout. “Oh, so is this, like, the first time you’re hanging out with kids your own age, then? That would explain a lot.”

“Xion, c’mon,” Roxas warned, voice quiet. 

She shrugged, eyes wide, and defended, “No, I’m serious! I was like that, too, before I started coming here and met you guys! First year I came, I was so shy, we barely even talked, Roxas, remember? My only friend was Lea, because he tried so hard to include me, and I just…got scared, and hid all the time, anyway. Last year, I felt a little better! That’s how you and I got to be best pals!”

“Who knew the cure for homeschool loneliness was writing letters long-hand?” Roxas joked, meeting Xion’s raised hand for a high five. “Maybe we’ll all write letters to you, too, Ven. Next year you’ll be crackin’ jokes like Xion, basically running the place.”

Kairi threw her hands in the air, a wide gesture to grab the entire group’s attention. “For real, though. Everyone shut up and leave Ventus alone and listen to me, instead. I need you to listen to me very carefully, Sora.”

Sora’s eyes went wide, and she squeaked at the call of her name. She turned on the grass, looking to Kairi, and nodded, “I am listening. _Very_ carefully.”

Kairi leaned over her legs, tilting off of the log. “If we do this tonight before curfew, we can claim the lists were always like this. Get the whole cabin onboard, and Elrena won’t question us enough to contest it. Pleeeeease, Sora, let me swap you Naminé for Olette. Let Olette come stay in my cabin, and you can have Naminé, and joke about art and make crafts, and you’ll have a great time!”

“I mean, Selphie already said she was cool with it,” Olette offered. “Wants me to team up with her for the Ultimate Frisbee tourney on Saturday.”

Naminé nodded softly. “I love all of you, so it doesn’t really matter, right? We’re all spending dinners together, anyway. It would just be group activities, and sleeping arrangements. I didn’t unpack anything, Kairi showed me the lists on the drive up.”

Sora scrunched her face up in thought. “Everyone needs to agree?” 

“So we have our story straight, for Elrena,” Kairi confirmed.

Xion immediately leaned to her right, wrapping her arms around Naminé’s, and laughed, “I am on board. I roomed with Olette last year. This is a chance to make new friends!”

“More friends is a pretty solid plan. You’re always talking about new friends, Sora,” Roxas said, hands in the air. “Not that I have any say in this, I mean.”

Olette counted off on her fingers, smiling wide. “Selphie agreed, Naminé never unpacked, Sora and Kairi are conspiring… Xion, you’re on board, so we’re good, right?”

“No,” Sora remembered, shaking her head. She pushed herself to her feet, dusting the grass and dirt from her red cotton shorts, and then planted her fists against her hips. “We’ve got the new kid! First year camper! Gotta go make sure swapping roomies is okay with them, _especially_.”

“First year camper?” Ven asked, finally paying attention. “Who, uh... Who else is in your cabin, Sora?”

She put her hand to her forehead, scanning the field for her missing camper. “Their name is Seren! You might like them, actually. Kinda quiet, like you. Then again, it’s the first night of camp, so maybe they're not so quiet after all! We’ll have to see, won’t we? Oh! There they are. Seren! Hey, Seren!”

Ven stood up faster than he meant to. He followed Sora’s gaze across the field to find that dark haired kid from earlier sitting against a tree on the other side of the field. Sora climbed over Hayner, who had laid out against Olette’s blanket, stomach to the ground and feet kicked up in the air behind him, and she skipped across the grass to meet her other camper. 

“Right, right, right,” Olette said, watching Sora go bounding off. “Forgot. She was- or, they were, I guess? Uh… in the bathroom when I got back to the cabin. Forgot about them.”

Seren’s knees had been against their chest, Ven noticed; they had been holding their legs, chin on their knees, hair falling in a mess around their face. He watched Sora squat down in front of them, hand out, smile bright, and talk for a few moments. Then, he felt like he was intruding when he noticed Seren wipe at their cheeks before they nodded, taking Sora’s hand and accepting her help to stand up. 

He noticed how everyone kept switching their pronouns. He felt terrible that he’d made the assumption he had when he’d seen them arguing with Skuld. Now, Ven wasn’t sure if he could call Skuld their sister; it seemed likely, but he didn’t want to guess. 

“Okay, everyone! Meet Seren!” Sora introduced, gesturing to Seren as the pair approached. She pointed out each person as she named off, “You know Olette, and Xion, and that’s Kairi, her sister Naminé… My brother Roxas, his friends Hayner and Pence, and this is Ven! It’s his first year, too.”

“Hi,” everyone chimed back.

Hayner squinted, rolling onto his back to look up at Seren. “Didn’t I see you check in? You were, like… fighting with your mom, or something. Was that you?”

Seren drew their lips into a thin line. “Sister,” they said. Ven nodded, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “We weren’t _fighting_ , she just… Insisted she walk me in.”

“Ven’s folks walked him all the way into the cabin,” Roxas offered, laughing. “I want one of those bracelets you’re apparently going to be making, by the way. Blue, please. Xion’s said I look best in blue.”

Xion grinned, rolling her shoulders with pride. “Brings out your eyes. Besides, you’re _way_ more mellow than Sora. She deserves the bright, warm colors. You’re cool. Mysterious.”

Sora snorted at that. Roxas did, too.

Ven was watching his feet. When he looked up, he noticed Seren was sharing a similar posture. “So, uh, anyway,” he coughed, trying to get the conversation away from himself, or at least what had started as them all poking fun at him, Ven asked, “Sora, you had a plan, with Kairi? Right?”

“Yes!” She grinned. “So, Kairi’s also a cabin leader, and she’s with her sister, Naminé, right now. But, they see each other all the time at home, so we thought we could swap Olette and Naminé! You know, Olette go stay in Kairi’s cabin, and Naminé would come bunk with us!”

“Um… Okay?” Seren replied. “Why is that, like… a ten person ordeal?”

“We have to claim the lists were always like that,” Kairi said. “Elrena won’t really care, but we just didn’t want to surprise you with it, that’s all.”

Seren nodded, eyes unfocused. “Oh. You want me to lie?” 

“Well, it’s not-?”

“You’re fine. I won’t cause a scene. I’m probably not going to be in that cabin very long, anyway, right, Sora?”

At that, everyone got visibly uncomfortable. “I… I mean, I think you can still have fun. If you want to, I mean,” Sora said, her shoulders rising to her ears. “We can still go talk to Elrena, or Isa, or someone. I don’t know. I want you to stay, because we can be friends, but if you’re going to be too uncomfortable... I don’t know. We’ll sort it out!”

“Are you not staying, or something?” Ven asked. When Seren looked to him, he realized he was still standing up. Nervously, Ven sat back down against the log, and made himself busy with the elastic of his wristband. “Sorry. Sorry, that’s not my business.”

Seren at first looked just as nervous. In fact, they almost looked mad. Then, as they watched Ven’s fingers play at the checker pattern bracelet on his wrist, Seren’s jaw unclenched, and they took a deep breath. “I’m totally fine with lying to counselors for whatever. You guys can swap around all you want, and I’ll cover you. It’s fine. It’s just...been a long day, right?” At the familiarity of that excuse, Ven huffed out a small laugh. Seren took a long breath, and then reset their whole posture. Hands at their hips, smile on their face, they announced, “I’m going to go get marshmallows. Anyone else want marshmallows?”

Ven could feel everyone’s eyes on him. He looked up to see the group waiting for his reply, and Seren looking straight at him, and so, his voice breaking from the pressure, he answered, “Uh, sure. Yeah, I’ll come along.”

Sora gave Seren a sort of look that Ven couldn’t place. It was like the two were communicating telepathically, and then Sora announced, “I’ll bring enough chocolate back for everyone. But mostly me, I think. But for everyone!”

Careful not to step on anyone’s fingers or feet, the three made their way through the field toward the roaring campfire, where counselors had bags of s’mores supplies and rows of skewers. As they made their way, Seren asked, their voice low, “Ven, right?”

“Yeah. Seren?”

“You saw everything, didn’t you?” They asked, looking over to meet his eye. Ven felt in that moment, when Seren’s eyes found his, like he was being interrogated. He stammered, and so they clarified, “I think I saw you. Or, like, your family, at least, when we drove up. You saw that whole thing, with me and my sister. Didn’t you?”

Ven couldn’t lie. He couldn’t even pretend he didn’t understand, he just blurted out, “Yeah, some of it. Most of it, I think. You slammed the car door pretty loud, it…It got some attention.”

“Yeah, well. She made another big scene at check-in, when they said I was going to be in a girls’ cabin. So, my summer is off to a humiliating start. Sounds like we’re wearing the same hat, them making jokes about your entourage.”

Ven tried to laugh that off. “Yeah, it’s... It’s not what I wanted to be known for.” Then, after a moment, he decided to ask, “What do you mean, exactly, about a girls’ cabin being something to make a scene over?”

Sora frowned, her hands behind her back. “I swear, everyone’s really nice, and it won’t be that big a deal. I used to be a boy, when I first started camp here, and they were really good about moving me?”

“But I’m not a boy,” Seren groaned, pulling on their hair. “I’m not a girl. I’m not a boy, either. I’m not anything! I’m a person. Just a person! No gender allowed!”

Ven couldn’t help but breathe out a laugh at that. It sounded nice, to just be a person. Just a _person_. “No gender allowed,” he quoted, making sure they knew he was trying to laugh _with_ them, and not at them. 

Seren smiled back at him. Looking at them now, Ventus wasn’t sure how he had confused Seren for Xion; Seren’s skin was a little bit lighter, and less red-toned, and they were absolutely covered in freckles. Xion’s eyes were dark, almost navy, and Seren’s were light and gray. Ven wanted to call them silver, but that felt stupid. Plus, obviously, Xion’s hair was in a neatly styled bob, framing her chin and wisping about her neck. Seren’s hair was, frankly, a mess. It was all sorts of lengths, in choppy, unaligned layers; it was like they were growing out a strange style, but weren’t sure what to do with it yet. 

And they had a gap in their front teeth. Just a little one, but it caught Ven’s eye every time Seren smiled. 

He felt his tongue go to his own front teeth, without having meant to. He heard Eraqus’s disappointed voice in the back of his memory. “They’re crooked, Ventus. We just can’t afford braces, no matter how sorely you’d need them.”

He’d stared at his mouth for a week after that in every reflective surface, trying to see what was so bad about his teeth. Maybe if he brushed them longer, they’d be better. Maybe Eraqus would have been less upset if Ven’s teeth were straighter. Aqua had offered to pick up extra shifts to cover the cost of an orthodontist, but Ven had been too embarrassed to nod, or ask her to help. He’d refused, like Eraqus taught him to. 

Terra used to think it was funny. Terra remembered those conversations very differently.

“Well, I mean,” Sora cut in, pulling Ven back to reality, “at least you're with me, right? Two trans kids in the same cabin, like. You know I’ll get it, at least. And everyone’s going to be here to, like, make sure everyone uses your right pronouns, and stuff?”

Seren gave a small nod, picking up a bag of marshmallows from the table and piling them onto a plate. “Yeah, but like…It would have been nice to do that on my terms, not… Not my stupid sister, throwing a fit for me. Like… I don't know. I can pick my own battles, right?”

Ven nodded, fast. “Right.”

“I’ll be fine,” Seren said, taking a deep breath and squaring off their shoulders. “I’m just…I don’t know. This will all feel silly in a day or two, I’m sure. I’m just... Mad about Skuld, still.”

“Do you want to talk about that?” Ven asked, cautious.

Seren barked out a laugh. “Absolutely not.” But then, after they popped a marshmallow into their mouth and thought about it a little more, they looked him over. Their eyes squinted as they studied him, and instead of shrinking under their scrutiny, Ven felt his spine straighten up. “Maybe some other time, though. You know, after you’ve earned it. So, Sora, I should go meet these cabin-mates, huh? Go make a better impression?”

Sora beamed. “I would love to introduce you. Everyone’s going to love you, Seren.”

They clapped a hand down on Sora’s shoulder, causing her to laugh and clap a hand back. “I sure hope so, Sora. I sure hope so.”

Ven couldn’t move his feet to follow them, though.

_After_ _you’ve_ _earned_ _it_ , they teased.

He wanted to earn it. 

He was _going_ to earn it.

For the first time since the sun had set, Ven’s mind was fixated on something _other_ than the knife in his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a writer I refuse to forgive and forget about the fact that Eraqus tried to murder Ven and then Ven straight up sprinted to hug his force-ghost. That’s not ok and I’m gonna play in that space for a while


End file.
